One thing I will have to do to successfully blog regularly is write ahead. Yesterday I started a post that was getting too long, but I realized it was because I didn't lay the proper groundwork. That's what I need to do today, going over my social media usage and history.
The first thing I realized is that it is much bigger than I thought. When I think social media, I think Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, plus lots of things that I know exist but I have never tried.
Then I remembered that Goodreads allows messages and likes and I have a profile. Blogger is a little different, at least in how you get feedback, but at least social media adjacent.
Then I remembered I tried Tumblr, and I have profiles on at least two fiction sites, and I am on a film networking site that is completely useless, but I still get notifications. I set up on Wordpress, but because I was used to Blogger it didn't stick. I kept remembering other things.
Therefore, my first point is that your online footprint is probably larger than you realize. That may leave you some vulnerabilities for hacking, especially if you reuse passwords.
It's not even that I didn't know that. I finished Zoe Quinn's Crash Override on May 4th (I can tell you that because of Goodreads) and I have left it on my desk since then because I thought I should go through and clean my online presence up. I haven't done it yet. Getting around to things can be a problem, but at least take time to think about it.
So, if we are including Blogger, I got on that just before the end of 2006, and added the travel blog in 2008 after our Australia trip, which is also when I got on to Facebook and Goodreads. (I added the Preparedness blog a few months later so I could archive newsletters.) Twitter didn't come until 2012, and has been the most transformative.
I initially got on Twitter because I was into Grimm and it didn't seem to have much of a Facebook presence. It was coincidental that I got on about two weeks before a coworker got me into the Misfits and I remembered that I had liked those two My Chemical Romance songs.
Lots of things happened from that. Because I followed various bands, a lot of bands followed me. I wanted to do something with that. That's how the music reviews started, and it eventually informed the songs of the day. I had liked music before, but I was listening to more and newer music.
A lot of people who liked the same music followed me. They tended to be much younger. A lot of them had issues with depression. That started me reading a lot more about psychology and recovery. It was not a complete change - Psychology Today had been one of my favorite magazines since college - but it became more targeted, especially as I begin to recognize more of my own experience in theirs.
I don't remember for sure if it was the music or something else that led to the comic book stuff, but it was definitely the comic book stuff (and mostly Gail Simone) that led to intersectional feminism.
It was definitely on Twitter that I first learned about Trayvon Martin's shooting, and I learned about it from a Grimm writer.
My point there is that a lot of it wasn't deliberate. For example, after I finished one personal writing project (the script for a comic book based on an MCR album) I felt like it was time for something different. One girl tweeted a lot of people on that next #FollowFriday. That's not a common practice anymore, but people used tweet other accounts to follow on Fridays. I usually ignored it, but that day I followed around 80. Come to think of it, that's when the increased interest in psychology kicked in.
While I had not planned things out in advance, the paths I followed were nonetheless dictated by my interests and values. I believe that is why I have ultimately been happy with the results.
There have been adjustments. Initially I automatically followed back everyone who followed me. A lot of people follow you to advertise to you; I learned that quickly. Some people retweet a lot of questionable content. Sometimes it may be best to un-follow, but you can keep following someone while turning off re-tweets.
I have decided that the important thing for me is relationships.
For Twitter that means that I keep the accounts I follow at a relatively low number. (Currently 1266, and followed by 1242.) I have made some friends there, but I also use it more for learning things, because that is how it works for me.
On the other hand, Facebook (for me) means keeping up with people I already know (mostly). I have used it for arranging in-person contact (pre-pandemic) and I am really dedicated to remembering people on their birthdays.
I use both Facebook and Twitter for putting out my blog posts and daily songs. Lately I have seen more opportunities to do good with the daily songs: using them for encouraging donations, promoting service opportunities, and now for sharing memories with other people. Those have come up because social good is important to me, and because people are important to me.
All of those efforts have had blog posts:
https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2020/06/fundraising-and-music.html
https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2020/07/christmas-service-style-in-july.html
https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2020/08/remember-september-next-round-of-daily.html
There have been many changes in the way I use social media over time, but they have all been ones that have made it better for me. That is where I will be going with the next post, which will also cover my use (or the lack thereof) of Instagram.
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